Free Nations League representatives discuss Indigenous peoples’ rights with UN Special Rapporteur Mariana Katzarova

Representatives of the Free Nations League met in New York with Mariana Katzarova, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Russian Federation.

The main topics were the persecution of national movements, the collective rights of peoples and the right to self-determination.

The League was represented at the meeting by:

Radjana Dugar-DePonte, co-chair of the democratic movement Buryad-Mongol Erkheten;

Vitaly Romashkin, a member of Atyan’ Ezem, the Council of Elders of the Erzya people;

Aigul Lion, head of the League’s Human Rights Group, a Bashkir journalist and a participant in the Committee of the Bashkir National Movement Abroad;

Batyr Boromangnaev, chairman of the Congress of the Oirat-Kalmyk People and a human rights defender.

The representatives gave a detailed account of the League’s work, the national movements represented in it and their own media platforms, which reach an audience of millions.

During the conversation, the League’s representatives paid particular attention to the nature of the Russian authorities’ policy towards Indigenous peoples. In their assessment, the persecution of national movements and the suppression of the national identities of Indigenous peoples amount to a distinct and deliberate policy on Moscow’s part. They stressed that treating these actions solely as part of the general repression of civil society in Russia does not fully capture their aims or their consequences for the peoples concerned.

A considerable part of the discussion was devoted to the collective rights of peoples, including the right to self-determination, and to the need to take violations of these rights into account in international human rights work.

Following the meeting, the two sides agreed to establish and maintain working contacts between the League and the staff of the Special Rapporteur’s office, and to exchange information on violations of human rights and of the collective rights of peoples in Russia. The League will prepare thematic briefings and provide its expertise, serving as a regular source of information on these issues for the Special Rapporteur’s office.

Mariana Katzarova is an independent expert mandated by the UN Human Rights Council. Her responsibilities include gathering and verifying information on human rights violations in Russia and preparing reports and recommendations for the UN. Her areas of work include political persecution, torture, arbitrary detention and the suppression of anti-war protest. She previously led Amnesty International’s research into human rights violations in Russia.